1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connection structure for a shield electric cable and a method of processing a shield electric cable and, more particularly, to a connection structure for a shield electric cable for connecting a shield electric cable and a shield terminal and a method of processing a shield electric cable in this connection.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a conventional connection structure for a shield electric cable, the structure described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Laid-Open Publication No. 8-78071.
In this connection structure, a shield electric cable, which extends in an almost columnar shape and is obtained by sequentially stacking an insulating inner jacket, a braided wire, and an insulating outer jacket on the outer layer of an innermost cable core, is subjected to a so-called peeling process to perform connection.
More specifically, the insulating outer jacket is peeled to expose the braided wire inside the insulating outer jacket.
Next, the braided wire is folded on the insulating outer jacket to overlap. Thereafter, the insulating inner jacket inside the braided wire is peeled to expose the cable core existing in the innermost portion.
Next, the insulating inner jacket of the shield electric cable subjected to this process pierces a holding portion of a terminal which is independently prepared, and the holding portion is caulked to fix the terminal through the insulating inner jacket. At this time, when the holding portion is caulked, the cable core of the shield electric cable is connected to the terminal to render them conductive.
Next, a cylindrical shield terminal is independently prepared. The shield electric cable connected to the terminal are caused to pierce the shield terminal, and the shield terminal and the braided wire of the shield electric cable are connected to each other inside the shield terminal to render them conductive.
More specifically, connection between the shield terminal and the braided wire is performed by the following manner. That is, a bent leaf spring piece is arranged in the shield terminal, and the shield terminal and the braided wire are brought into contact with each other to sandwich the braided wire of the shield electric cable between the bent leaf spring pieces.
Certainly, in the above connection structure, the braided wire of the shield electric cable need not be exposed in a long range. For this reason, operations, i.e., an operation of twisting the braided wire or causing the braided wire to go through a thermal shrinkage tube, or an operation of caulking the shield terminal on the braided wire to connect them to each other, are not required. Therefore, the connection workability is improved.
However, in this connection structure, in order to connect the braided wire of the shield electric cable to the shield terminal, a leaf spring piece is additionally arranged inside the shield terminal, and the structure of the shield terminal is complicated. For this reason, the manufacture itself of the shield terminal is complicated.
In addition, in order to prevent contact between the leaf spring piece and the braided wire of the shield electric cable from being imperfect, the spring load of the leaf spring piece must be set to be large to some extent. However, the spring load is increased, the braided wire cannot be easily inserted to the bent portion of the leaf spring piece, the workability becomes defective. Further, depending on cases, the braided wire is pressed by the leaf spring piece in the direction opposing the insertion direction to set a state wherein the leaf spring piece is mainly in contact with only the insulating inner jacket as a result. That is, imperfect contact between the leaf spring piece and the braided wire may occur.
As a matter of course, in order to connect a shield electric cable and a shield terminal to each other, the insulating outer jacket of the shield electric cable must be peeled to expose the braided wire with a certain length over the entire circumference. The most of the peeling step cannot help depending on a manual operation, and a long period of time is required to correctly perform the operation. As a result, the operation is not efficient.